From Brandon Smith of the Bob Livingston Personal Liberty Alerts
I think one of the most bizarre social developments of the past 10 years in the U.S. has been the slow but steady shift of the political left from supposed defenders of free speech to open aggression against it. The level of rationalization and mental gymnastics on display by leftists to justify their attacks on freedom and the First Amendment are bewildering. So much so that I begin to question if liberals and leftists ever actually had any respect for speech rights to begin with?
Or maybe the only freedom they cared about was the freedom to watch pornography?
One can see the steady progression of this war on speech and ideas, and the end game is predictable. Is anyone really that surprised that the Biden administration is implementing a Ministry of Truth in the form of the DHS Disinformation Governance Board? Can we just accept the reality at this point that leftists are evil and their efforts feed into an agenda of authoritarianism?
Before I get into this issue, I think it's important to point out that it's becoming tiresome to hear arguments these days suggesting that meeting leftists "somewhere in the middle" is somehow the best and most desirable option. I see this attitude all over the place and I think it comes from a certain naivety about the situation we find ourselves in as a country. Moderates and "normies" are finally starting to realize how bag-lady-crazy leftists are and the pendulum is swinging back slightly, but it was conservatives that were calling out the social justice cult and their highway to hell for years.
There is no such thing as a "center" in our society anymore, either you lean conservative and you support freedom, or you lean left and support authoritarianism. There is no magical and Utopian in-between that we need to achieve to make things right. Also, no, there are no conservatives that support authoritarianism. There are fake GOP RINOS that are not conservative at all in rhetoric or in action; they do not represent conservatives in the slightest. Any Republican that goes against the basic tenets of constitutionalism, free markets, individual liberty, non-intervention in foreign entanglements and the protection of the founding principles of our country is not a conservative.
We need to be clear about where the lines are drawn because sitting on the fence is not an option. Walk in the middle of the road? Get squished like a grape.
To understand how leftists got to the point of enthusiastic hostility against free speech rights there are some psychological and ideological factors that need to be addressed. These are some of the ideals that leftists value that are disjointed or simply wrong:
Hate Speech Is Real And Must Be Censored?
First, as I have argued for many years, well before the social justice movement ever became a point of contention in the U.S., there is no such thing as "hate speech." There is speech that some people don't like and speech they are offended by. That is all.
Constitutionally there is no illegal hate speech. People are allowed to say any offensive thing they wish and believe however they wish as long as they are not slandering a person's reputation with lies or threatening them with direct bodily harm. If you are offended by criticism, that is your problem.
Leftists believe the opposite. They think that "hate speech" is illegal or should be illegal and that they should be the people that determine what hate speech is. This is a kind of magical door to power because if you can declare yourself the arbiter of hate speech you give yourself the authority to control all speech. That is to say, as a speech arbiter all you have to do is label everything you don't like as hate speech, no matter how factual, and you now dictate the course of society.
No one is capable of this kind of objectivity or benevolence. No person alive has the ability to determine what speech is acceptable without bias. Like the One Ring in The Lord of The Rings, there is no individual or group capable of wielding such power without being corrupted by it. Either there is no hate speech, or everything becomes hate speech.
Free Speech Is Negated By Property Rights?
This is in direct reference to social media websites and it's an oversimplification of the issue of free speech and large social media platforms. Here is the conundrum, or "false paradigm" if you will:
Leftists argue for private property rights, but only when it comes to vast corporate big tech platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. They like private property rights for companies that they think are on their side politically.
They hate private property rights for everyone else. Just look at their response to Elon Musk's recent Twitter buyout; the leftists are demanding that Musk be stopped at all costs and demanding the SEC and FCC step in to disrupt the sale because they claim Musk's purchase is a "threat to democracy."
Why are Elon Musk's private property rights now less important or protected that the original shareholders of Twitter (Vangaurd, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley and a Saudi Prince)? Because Musk does not appear to represent leftist designs and interests. Leftists have no ideals or principles, they only care about control.
Beyond that irony, though, is the deeper issue of government intervention vs business rights. Is either side really trustworthy? The answer is no. Many people seem to think that government power is supposed to balance out corporate power when the truth is that governments and corporations work hand in hand; they are one in the same entity in many cases.
Twitter and other Big Tech platforms receive billions upon billions of dollars in government stimulus and tax incentives every year. Corporations as a concept are essentially a socialist creation. They enjoy limited liability and corporate personhood along with other special protections under government charter. With all these protections, incentives and stimulus measures, it is almost impossible for small and new businesses to compete with them. They represent a monopoly through cartel; they control the marketplace by colluding with each other and through support of the government itself.
A perfect example of this would be the collusion between multiple Big Tech companies to bring down Parler, a conservative-leaning competitor to Twitter. This required some of the biggest companies on the planet working in unison along with the blessing of government to disrupt the ability of a new company to offer an alternative, and all because Parler was getting too big.
In the case of a private person's home or small business, it's true that there are no free speech rights. They can kick you out and they don't have to give a reason. But when it comes to massive conglomerates that receive billions in our tax dollars in order to stay alive, no, they do not deserve private property rights. They have not made themselves into a public utility.
This is a concept that leftists just don't grasp. Consider global corporation Disney and their open intention to undermine the passage of Florida's anti-grooming bill; this represented a vocal support for the sexualization and indoctrination of children in Florida schools. Leftists cheered the announcement and claimed that without Disney, Florida's economy would be wrecked. Instead, the state turned the tables and took away incentives they had been giving to Disney for decades.
Leftists responded by accusing Governor DeSantis of being a "fascist" and attacking free speech.
But let's break this down: Leftists happily supported Disney, a massive conglomerate, and their efforts to undermine the will of the voters in Florida. The state government stops them from undermining the voters by taking away the money and special incentives that belong to the voters. In turn, leftists claim this is a violation of Disney's rights?
No corporation, including Disney, is entitled to special incentives from government or the taxpayer. If they accept such incentives, then they must also accept that certain behaviors are unacceptable, including schemes to disrupt legal decisions within a state or country. The corporation is no longer private, it is partially public. This goes for Big Tech and social media platforms as well.
Censorship by these companies is not their right. They gave up that right when they took our money.
Disinformation Is A Threat And Censorship Is The Solution?
Governments and major corporations talking about the threat of "disinformation" is hilarious for a number of reasons, but mainly because traditionally it is the power brokers that have been the main purveyors of disinformation for a very long time. Suddenly today they care about the spreading of lies?
Rather, I think it is obvious that such people are far more worried about the spread of facts, evidence and truth. The institution of the Disinformation Governance Board is a clear indication that the establishment and the useful idiots on the political left are becoming desperate.
They are losing their grip on the public mind, and we can see this in the results of their recent attempts to enforce medical tyranny across the country in the name of COVID. Luckily, conservatives in at least 20 red states fought against the implementation of COVID lockdowns, mandates and vaccine passports which would have annihilated our constitutional rights, perhaps forever.
If you want to know what our country would look like had conservatives not stopped the tide of tyranny, just take a look at China today. They have some of the strictest COIVD mandates in the world and yet they are locking down millions yet again due to "high infection rates" and starving their own people in the process. It's madness, and it's exactly what leftists were arguing in favor of just a few months ago. The U.S. is mostly open today, just as red states like mine have been free for almost the entirety of the pandemic, and what has changed? Half the country is still unvaccinated and is there mass death in the streets? Nope.
Nothing has changed in terms of COVID. The mandates made no difference whatsoever, other than to disrupt the economy and reduce people's freedoms.
Not long ago, pointing out this fact was considered "disinformation" that needed to be silenced in order to "save lives." In other words, what the government and corporate oligarchs call "disinformation" today is eventually called reality tomorrow.
It is not their job to protect the public from information, whether real or fake. It is not their job to filter or censor data or ideas. They are not qualified to do this. No one is. Leftists operate from a collectivist mentality, and this makes them believe that society is a singular entity that needs to be managed and manipulated to achieve a specific outcome. They support information control because facts and ideas outside of their narrative could possibly damage their narrative, and if the narrative is damaged, then they think society as a whole is damaged.
That said, if your narrative is so fragile that it does not hold up to scrutiny or alternative viewpoints, then it must not be worth much of a damn, is it? If you have to force people or manipulate people into believing the way you do, then your ideology must be fundamentally flawed. The truth speaks volumes for itself and eventually wins without force. Only lies need to be forced into the collective consciousness.
Government lies in particular are the biggest threat to humanity, and their assertion that they should have the power to dictate what constitutes a "lie" is the biggest clown show of all time. Leftists love lies and use them constantly because they understand that lies are a form of sorcery. If told by the right people with the illusion of authority, lies can garner unlimited power from thin air. Power can only be derived by tricking other people into giving up control over themselves. Power is a trick in which the public is convinced to submit and become enslaved for the "greater good," even though freedom is the only greater good.
The collectivists live vicariously through government power. Leftists gain ecstasy through tyranny because the dominance of the hive mind is their dominance. They actually believe that if the system has ultimate power, they in turn have ultimate power. It is a mental disease that destroys everything in its path, and it is one that is actively encouraged by globalists and oligarchs. Leftist cultists serve their agenda, whether those leftists know it or not.
To truth and knowledge,
Brandon Smith
(And what's MY take on all this, you ask)? Simple!
Morality to honest people is sequential: "Who Started it?" But morality to hypocrites is only: "I'm Never Wrong - Fuck Your "FACTS!" And since they can't prove that to be right, all they've got left is offended subjective emotions and hurt feelings, and to call you names and insist you're always wrong (they don't try to prove them selves objectively right, because they know they can't - so they just stay on the victim-blaming offensive all the time, shallowly accusing their accusers of their own crimes)! Which explains censorship, too. They concentrate on banning the tactics ("ban all assault weapons!") FOR OTHERS, to divert attention away from their own strategy ("always attack first")! This includes judges and all "Authorities!"
Attacking first, with whatever weapon, is the crime; using that same weapon, no matter what is is, to defend one's self and/or innocent others, is moral.
But all "Authorities!" as professional hypocrites, will have none of that sequence-based 'logic' stuff!
And since they're in charge, there are no consequences for them to continue to always double-down and never have to learn to change their minds, either. They're never wrong while you are always guilty until never proven innocent, peons!
;-)
